Описание: John Wilkes Booth assassinated president Abraham Lincoln at Washingtons Fords Theatre on Good Friday evening, April 14, 1865. He broke his leg while fleeing from the theater, and sought medical help just before dawn at the Southern Maryland farm of Dr. Samuel A. Mudd. Booth left the Mudd farm later that day, but a week and a half later he was cornered and killed by Union soldiers in Virginia.
Many people were arrested during the governments investigation of the assassination, but ultimately only eight of these, including Dr. Mudd, were put on trial for being part of Booths conspiracy. Conspiracy was defined by the government as anyone involved in the actual assassination, as well as anyone who helped the assassin avoid capture after the assassination.
Dr. Mudd had nothing to do with planning or carrying out the assassination of president Lincoln, but the military court found him guilty of helping Booth avoid capture by not alerting the authorities to Booths presence at his farm.
All of the eight persons put on trial were found guilty. The four who were considered to have actually been involved in the assassination were hanged. The other four, including Dr. Mudd, were sent to Fort Jefferson, a military prison located on a small Gulf of Mexico island in the Dry Torguas, about 70 miles west of Key West, Florida. Shortly after his arrival at Fort Jefferson, Dr. Mudd tried to escape by hiding on a visiting supply ship, but was discovered and imprisoned in the forts dungeon for three months.
President Andrew Johnson pardoned Dr. Mudd in 1869, a few days before he was replaced as president by war hero Ulysses S. Grant. He was pardoned in part because of his heroic work during a deadly 1867 yellow fever epidemic at Fort Jefferson. The prison doctor died of yellow fever shortly after the epidemic began. The forts commander realized that he needed Dr. Mudds help, so he ordered Get the doctor from his cell , and Dr. Mudd went to work ministering to the yellow fever victims.
Three hundred thirteen soldiers, 54 prisoners, and 20 civilians, a total of 387 people, were at the fort during the epidemic. Two hundred seventy of them contracted yellow fever. Thirty-eight died. Many of the survivors credited Dr. Mudd with their recovery. Towards the end of the epidemic, Dr. Mudd himself contracted yellow fever and almost died. When the epidemic had finally run its course, the surviving soldiers at Fort Jefferson signed a petition asking President Johnson to pardon Dr. Mudd for his service during the epidemic. The petition said in part:
He inspired the hopeless with courage, and by his constant presence in the midst of danger and infection, regardless of his own life, tranquilized the fearful and desponding.
After his release from prison, Dr. Mudd returned home to his wife and children, redeemed in the eyes of many for his life-saving work at Fort Jefferson during the epidemic. He lived 14 more years, dying from pneumonia in 1883 at the age of 49.
